She said: "We are not trying to take away the history of Parliament, but we do want to make it look more aspirational and modern. These sort of pictures build the unconscious bias towards men, saying this is a male Parliament, built by men and for men.

"It's slightly out of touch. Let's look at things that have been achieved by women. Not a huge amount is made of the suffragettes or the first female Parliamentarians who were paving the way.

"We have moved a long way in the last decade but there is so much more to do. We need to make it look like a place that's encouraging women to participate."

The parliamentary collection includes more than 2,000 works of art, ranging from full-length paintings and statues to busts and prints.

The pictures are prominently displayed in areas of the Palace of Westminster visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year. Of the 179 works of art highlighted on Parliament's website, just 29 depict women.

They include images of Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative Prime Minister, Baroness Betty Boothroyd, the former Speaker, and Lady Nancy Astor, the first female MP to take a seat in the Commons.

The pictures reflect the fact that since the inception of Parliament the vast majority of MPs have been men, with women ineligible to vote or stand for election until 1918.

In 1979, the year that Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister, just 19 MPs were women, a figure which had risen by 143 by 2010.

Maria Miller, the former Culture Secretary, warned that David Cameron may fail in his attempts to bring more women into the Conservative Party and be forced to introduce all-women shortlists.

Miss Miller warned that Parliament is at risk of "lagging behind" the business community as only a fifth of MPs are women.

She said she would not "rule out" all-women shortlists for selecting Conservative party candidates in future if the party fails to make the "progress that we need to".

David Cameron has faced criticism over the absence of women on the Tory front bench from Ed Miliband, the Labour leader.

Mr Cameron is expected to go some way to redressing the balance in his reshuffle on Monday evening by promoting as many as 10 female MPs to ministerial positions.

Miss Miller, who resigned after a scandal over her expenses, said: "It is one of the most important things that the party's dealing with, trying to get more women to come forward.

"At this point we don't believe we need to go that far, but I certainly wouldn't rule out all-women shortlists if we don't make the progress that we need to.

"Because as a party, just like as a Parliament, we need to make sure we're connected to the electorate we want to represent, 52% of those electorate are women and its important that our party has a good representation of women within it."

She added that academically successful young women are routinely choosing to go into areas like law and accountancy instead of politics.

She told the Murnaghan show on Sky News: "I think that there is a real problem there. We only have 22% of Members of Parliament [who] are female.

"We're seeing young girls [who] come out of universities with the best degrees choosing to go into areas like law and accountancy in more numbers than their male counterparts, yet in Parliament we're still struggling to really attract women to consider this either as a first career or a second career.

"I think all of us who go into Parliament are going in to try and improve the communities in which we live and I think that's a powerful message to men and women.

"But when you look at the figures you aren't seeing women really take up that challenge. And I think the important report that's coming out tomorrow is the first time parliamentarians have actually tried to grapple with that issue, but political parties have been trying to deal with it now for the best part of a decade.

"Parliament really is on the verge of lagging behind in trying to address this issue, where many other professions have already I think got their teeth into it and have many women coming through their talent stream."